Salesforce Financial Services Cloud
The challenge
Salesforce Financial Services Cloud (FSC) was being introduced as a major technology transformation across the banking organization.
At Sterling National Bank, Salesforce FSC was replacing an outdated customer relationship management system while also introducing capabilities that did not previously exist. The implementation touched multiple lines of business, including consumer banking, commercial banking, treasury management, banking centers, and the contact center.
The scale was significant. Approximately 2,500–3,000 employees would be affected in some way, with different groups using different Salesforce capabilities based on their roles.
The learning challenge was therefore more complicated than creating a single technology course.
Different audiences needed to learn different workflows within the same platform, including:
Customer and contact management
Opportunity and activity management
Service request/case management
Campaign management
Financial information and relationships
Reports and dashboards
Treasury management
Salesforce administration
The program also had to be developed while the technology itself was still evolving. Salesforce was being configured and refined through an agile development process while the learning team was simultaneously building the training.
The learning team was, in effect, changing the wheels on the bus while the bus was moving.
That meant training could be considered complete one week and require revision the next when a workflow, screen, or process changed.
The challenge became even more complex after Sterling National Bank and Webster Bank merged in 2022.
Webster was already using an older version of Salesforce. As the combined organization prepared to move to Salesforce Financial Services Cloud, the learning strategy needed to scale to a significantly larger audience.
When I was brought into the Webster implementation several months after it had begun, I discovered that the existing learning approach did not align with the strategy we had previously developed for Sterling.
That became an opportunity to use what we had already learned—and what I had documented—to redirect the learning strategy for the combined organization.
Salesforce Financial Services Cloud (FSC) was being introduced as a major technology transformation across the banking organization.
At Sterling National Bank, Salesforce FSC was replacing an outdated customer relationship management system while also introducing capabilities that did not previously exist. The implementation touched multiple lines of business, including consumer banking, commercial banking, treasury management, banking centers, and the contact center.
The scale was significant. Approximately 2,500–3,000 employees would be affected in some way, with different groups using different Salesforce capabilities based on their roles.
The learning challenge was therefore more complicated than creating a single technology course.
Different audiences needed to learn different workflows within the same platform, including:
Customer and contact management
Opportunity and activity management
Service request/case management
Campaign management
Financial information and relationships
Reports and dashboards
Treasury management
Salesforce administration
The program also had to be developed while the technology itself was still evolving. Salesforce was being configured and refined through an agile development process while the learning team was simultaneously building the training.
The learning team was, in effect, changing the wheels on the bus while the bus was moving.
That meant training could be considered complete one week and require revision the next when a workflow, screen, or process changed.
The challenge became even more complex after Sterling National Bank and Webster Bank merged in 2022.
Webster was already using an older version of Salesforce. As the combined organization prepared to move to Salesforce Financial Services Cloud, the learning strategy needed to scale to a significantly larger audience.
When I was brought into the Webster implementation several months after it had begun, I discovered that the existing learning approach did not align with the strategy we had previously developed for Sterling.
That became an opportunity to use what we had already learned—and what I had documented—to redirect the learning strategy for the combined organization.
My Role
My role evolved across the two implementations.
Sterling National Bank
I led the learning and development work across multiple Salesforce FSC components while managing a small internal team and an additional dedicated instructional design contractor.
I was responsible for:
Establishing the learning curriculum
Defining learning standards and templates
Managing the master training project plan
Assigning and coordinating work across instructional designers
Reviewing learning deliverables
Partnering with SMEs and process owners
Coordinating with the enterprise PMO
Managing vendor relationships
Determining appropriate learning modalities
Securing additional resources when capacity became a constraint
Managing deadlines across multiple concurrent workstreams
My direct reports maintained their individual project plans, while I maintained oversight of the master learning project plan and ensured alignment across the broader initiative.
The team also served as a central learning hub for multiple lines of business. We developed core training materials that other groups could then adapt for their specific audiences.
Webster Bank
The second implementation was very different.
I was initially not part of the Webster Salesforce FSC project. Several months into the project, I was asked to provide input because of my experience with the original Sterling implementation.
After reviewing the existing strategy and project plan, I recognized that the learning approach differed significantly from the strategy we had developed for Sterling.
I shared the original approach and supporting artifacts, and the project team ultimately brought me onto the initiative as the Learning & Development point person and project lead.
I took over the learning project management responsibilities and led the work with one other instructional designer.
This included reestablishing the learning strategy, managing the work, coordinating stakeholders and SMEs, and moving the project toward delivery.
My role evolved across the two implementations.
Sterling National Bank
I led the learning and development work across multiple Salesforce FSC components while managing a small internal team and an additional dedicated instructional design contractor.
I was responsible for:
Establishing the learning curriculum
Defining learning standards and templates
Managing the master training project plan
Assigning and coordinating work across instructional designers
Reviewing learning deliverables
Partnering with SMEs and process owners
Coordinating with the enterprise PMO
Managing vendor relationships
Determining appropriate learning modalities
Securing additional resources when capacity became a constraint
Managing deadlines across multiple concurrent workstreams
My direct reports maintained their individual project plans, while I maintained oversight of the master learning project plan and ensured alignment across the broader initiative.
The team also served as a central learning hub for multiple lines of business. We developed core training materials that other groups could then adapt for their specific audiences.
Webster Bank
The second implementation was very different.
I was initially not part of the Webster Salesforce FSC project. Several months into the project, I was asked to provide input because of my experience with the original Sterling implementation.
After reviewing the existing strategy and project plan, I recognized that the learning approach differed significantly from the strategy we had developed for Sterling.
I shared the original approach and supporting artifacts, and the project team ultimately brought me onto the initiative as the Learning & Development point person and project lead.
I took over the learning project management responsibilities and led the work with one other instructional designer.
This included reestablishing the learning strategy, managing the work, coordinating stakeholders and SMEs, and moving the project toward delivery.
The Approach
The approach was built around a fundamental principle:
The technology was enterprise-wide, but the learning had to be role-based.
Everyone needed a common understanding of Salesforce FSC, but employees did not need to learn every capability of the platform.
A contact center employee, a treasury management professional, a commercial banker, and a banking center employee could all use Salesforce—but they used it differently.
1. Identify the capabilities and audiences
We mapped the Salesforce capabilities to the tasks different colleagues would need to perform.
The analysis documented:
What colleagues needed to learn
The degree of change
Which populations were impacted
Existing training materials
Required modalities
Content owners and reviewers
For example, the Service Case Management work identified distinct learning needs for case originators and case responders, rather than treating service requests as one generic workflow.
That same approach was applied across the broader Salesforce ecosystem.
2. Establish a common foundation
Because Salesforce was replacing an existing CRM while introducing new functionality, we created an introductory experience that established a common baseline.
The introduction covered the Salesforce FSC environment, logging into and navigating the platform, understanding the interface, and becoming familiar with the new system before moving into role-specific workflows.
The introductory course was particularly valuable because it could be designed at a sufficiently high level to remain useful as the system evolved.
3. Build role-based learning
Rather than creating one enormous Salesforce course, the learning experience was organized around the responsibilities of different audiences.
Some colleagues needed to manage opportunities.
Others needed to manage service requests.
Others needed banking-center capabilities, treasury-management workflows, reporting, or administrative functions.
The resulting curriculum therefore reflected what people actually needed to do in Salesforce, rather than simply presenting the platform’s features.
4. Design for a moving target
Because development and configuration were happening simultaneously, we worked closely with the PMO, developers, vendors, SMEs, and process owners.
Weekly meetings and iterative reviews allowed the learning team to respond when the system changed.
Minor interface changes could often be addressed through instructor guidance. Fundamental process changes required the learning materials to be revisited and updated.
That required a highly agile approach to instructional design and project management.
The approach was built around a fundamental principle:
The technology was enterprise-wide, but the learning had to be role-based.
Everyone needed a common understanding of Salesforce FSC, but employees did not need to learn every capability of the platform.
A contact center employee, a treasury management professional, a commercial banker, and a banking center employee could all use Salesforce—but they used it differently.
1. Identify the capabilities and audiences
We mapped the Salesforce capabilities to the tasks different colleagues would need to perform.
The analysis documented:
What colleagues needed to learn
The degree of change
Which populations were impacted
Existing training materials
Required modalities
Content owners and reviewers
For example, the Service Case Management work identified distinct learning needs for case originators and case responders, rather than treating service requests as one generic workflow.
That same approach was applied across the broader Salesforce ecosystem.
2. Establish a common foundation
Because Salesforce was replacing an existing CRM while introducing new functionality, we created an introductory experience that established a common baseline.
The introduction covered the Salesforce FSC environment, logging into and navigating the platform, understanding the interface, and becoming familiar with the new system before moving into role-specific workflows.
The introductory course was particularly valuable because it could be designed at a sufficiently high level to remain useful as the system evolved.
3. Build role-based learning
Rather than creating one enormous Salesforce course, the learning experience was organized around the responsibilities of different audiences.
Some colleagues needed to manage opportunities.
Others needed to manage service requests.
Others needed banking-center capabilities, treasury-management workflows, reporting, or administrative functions.
The resulting curriculum therefore reflected what people actually needed to do in Salesforce, rather than simply presenting the platform’s features.
4. Design for a moving target
Because development and configuration were happening simultaneously, we worked closely with the PMO, developers, vendors, SMEs, and process owners.
Weekly meetings and iterative reviews allowed the learning team to respond when the system changed.
Minor interface changes could often be addressed through instructor guidance. Fundamental process changes required the learning materials to be revisited and updated.
That required a highly agile approach to instructional design and project management.
Leadership & Execution
This is where I think the Salesforce story becomes especially strong.
The project wasn’t simply a large instructional design effort. It was a coordination problem.
I was working across multiple lines of business and multiple stakeholder groups while managing a limited learning-development capacity.
At Sterling, I had two direct reports whose primary responsibilities were already aligned to other lines of business. Rather than simply reassigning them and creating another organizational problem, I worked with leadership to secure a dedicated instructional design contractor for the Salesforce initiative.
That allowed us to increase capacity without disrupting other business commitments.
I also established a division of responsibility in which team members managed their individual project plans while I maintained the master learning plan and overall alignment.
The central learning hub
One of the most important aspects of my role was coordinating the relationship between the central L&D team and the individual business functions.
Our team developed core training materials that other teams could adapt.
For example, the contact center had its own training resources and needed to adapt the Salesforce material for its particular workflows. Treasury Management similarly needed to incorporate additional tasks into its training.
Rather than creating completely separate learning solutions for every group, we created a shared foundation that could be adapted to individual business needs.
That approach increased consistency while allowing the individual functions to address their unique requirements.
Managing the moving target
The implementation also required constant coordination with the technology project.
Salesforce was being developed through an agile process while training was being developed simultaneously. When functionality changed, we had to determine whether the change was cosmetic or whether it fundamentally affected the learner’s workflow.
That distinction mattered.
A relocated button did not necessarily require redevelopment.
A changed business process did.
This required judgment, communication, and close coordination with the technology team and vendors.
This is where I think the Salesforce story becomes especially strong.
The project wasn’t simply a large instructional design effort. It was a coordination problem.
I was working across multiple lines of business and multiple stakeholder groups while managing a limited learning-development capacity.
At Sterling, I had two direct reports whose primary responsibilities were already aligned to other lines of business. Rather than simply reassigning them and creating another organizational problem, I worked with leadership to secure a dedicated instructional design contractor for the Salesforce initiative.
That allowed us to increase capacity without disrupting other business commitments.
I also established a division of responsibility in which team members managed their individual project plans while I maintained the master learning plan and overall alignment.
The central learning hub
One of the most important aspects of my role was coordinating the relationship between the central L&D team and the individual business functions.
Our team developed core training materials that other teams could adapt.
For example, the contact center had its own training resources and needed to adapt the Salesforce material for its particular workflows. Treasury Management similarly needed to incorporate additional tasks into its training.
Rather than creating completely separate learning solutions for every group, we created a shared foundation that could be adapted to individual business needs.
That approach increased consistency while allowing the individual functions to address their unique requirements.
Managing the moving target
The implementation also required constant coordination with the technology project.
Salesforce was being developed through an agile process while training was being developed simultaneously. When functionality changed, we had to determine whether the change was cosmetic or whether it fundamentally affected the learner’s workflow.
That distinction mattered.
A relocated button did not necessarily require redevelopment.
A changed business process did.
This required judgment, communication, and close coordination with the technology team and vendors.
The Solution
The result was a multi-course, role-based Salesforce FSC learning ecosystem supporting a broad range of banking functions.
The curriculum included learning across areas such as:
Introduction & Platform Navigation
Establishing a common foundation for Salesforce FSC users.
Customer & Contact Management
Managing customer and prospect information.
Campaign Management
Managing campaigns, campaign members, and related opportunities.
Opportunity & Activity Management
Supporting sales pipeline and activity workflows.
Service Case Management
Training both employees who originated service requests and those responsible for responding to and resolving them.
Financial Information & Relationships
Working with client financial information and relationship data.
Reports & Dashboards
Using Salesforce reporting and analytics capabilities.
Treasury Management
Supporting specialized treasury-management workflows.
Administration
Providing system administrators with the knowledge required to manage Salesforce capabilities.
The capability analysis shows the breadth of the implementation, including differences in change level and employee populations across capabilities. For example, Opportunity Management was identified as a moderate change affecting a large employee population, while Service Case Management was classified as a high-change area with distinct originator and responder training.
Webster: Scaling and Improving the Model
The Webster implementation gave us an opportunity to take what worked from Sterling and improve it.
The audience grew from roughly 2,500–3,000 employees at Sterling to approximately 4,000–5,000 employees in the combined organization, while the learning-development resources did not increase proportionately.
That required us to be deliberate about scale.
We retained the high-level Salesforce introduction as e-learning and used instructor-led learning for more complex role-specific workflows.
But we also expanded the learning experience by introducing:
Hands-on labs
Learner workbooks
Office hours
Additional opportunities for practice and side-by-side support
This moved the solution beyond “here is how the system works” toward: Learn it, practice it, get support, apply it.
The result was a multi-course, role-based Salesforce FSC learning ecosystem supporting a broad range of banking functions.
The curriculum included learning across areas such as:
Introduction & Platform Navigation
Establishing a common foundation for Salesforce FSC users.
Customer & Contact Management
Managing customer and prospect information.
Campaign Management
Managing campaigns, campaign members, and related opportunities.
Opportunity & Activity Management
Supporting sales pipeline and activity workflows.
Service Case Management
Training both employees who originated service requests and those responsible for responding to and resolving them.
Financial Information & Relationships
Working with client financial information and relationship data.
Reports & Dashboards
Using Salesforce reporting and analytics capabilities.
Treasury Management
Supporting specialized treasury-management workflows.
Administration
Providing system administrators with the knowledge required to manage Salesforce capabilities.
The capability analysis shows the breadth of the implementation, including differences in change level and employee populations across capabilities. For example, Opportunity Management was identified as a moderate change affecting a large employee population, while Service Case Management was classified as a high-change area with distinct originator and responder training.
Webster: Scaling and Improving the Model
The Webster implementation gave us an opportunity to take what worked from Sterling and improve it.
The audience grew from roughly 2,500–3,000 employees at Sterling to approximately 4,000–5,000 employees in the combined organization, while the learning-development resources did not increase proportionately.
That required us to be deliberate about scale.
We retained the high-level Salesforce introduction as e-learning and used instructor-led learning for more complex role-specific workflows.
But we also expanded the learning experience by introducing:
Hands-on labs
Learner workbooks
Office hours
Additional opportunities for practice and side-by-side support
This moved the solution beyond “here is how the system works” toward: Learn it, practice it, get support, apply it.
Impact
The Sterling implementation successfully met—and in several cases exceeded—the established delivery deadlines.
More importantly, it established a consistent learning foundation across multiple lines of business while allowing individual departments to adapt the materials to their specific needs.
The central L&D materials became a resource that other training teams could use to build their own role-specific learning.
At Webster, the earlier work became even more valuable.
Because I had maintained detailed project plans, curriculum documentation, content, and strategy artifacts from the Sterling implementation, I was able to return to that work years later and use it as the foundation for the new organization.
The experience effectively created a documented organizational playbook that could be reused rather than reinvented.
And that may be the most meaningful impact of this project:
The work survived the merger.
The original project had been paused as the organizations transitioned through the merger, but the strategy, artifacts, and institutional knowledge remained available.
When the new organization needed to move forward, I could retrieve that knowledge, evaluate the new approach, identify what was missing, and help redirect the project.
The Sterling implementation successfully met—and in several cases exceeded—the established delivery deadlines.
More importantly, it established a consistent learning foundation across multiple lines of business while allowing individual departments to adapt the materials to their specific needs.
The central L&D materials became a resource that other training teams could use to build their own role-specific learning.
At Webster, the earlier work became even more valuable.
Because I had maintained detailed project plans, curriculum documentation, content, and strategy artifacts from the Sterling implementation, I was able to return to that work years later and use it as the foundation for the new organization.
The experience effectively created a documented organizational playbook that could be reused rather than reinvented.
And that may be the most meaningful impact of this project:
The work survived the merger.
The original project had been paused as the organizations transitioned through the merger, but the strategy, artifacts, and institutional knowledge remained available.
When the new organization needed to move forward, I could retrieve that knowledge, evaluate the new approach, identify what was missing, and help redirect the project.
Reflection
This project taught me that learning strategy becomes especially valuable when it is built to outlast the project itself.
The Sterling implementation was one of my first experiences leading a large, cross-functional technology-learning initiative. I learned how to coordinate across multiple lines of business, manage competing demands for limited resources, work with vendors and SMEs, and keep learning development moving while the underlying technology continued to change.
But the Webster implementation taught me something even more valuable.
Documentation is leadership infrastructure.
Years after the original Sterling project had stopped, the work I had documented became a source of organizational knowledge.
I didn’t have to reconstruct the strategy from memory.
I had the curriculum approach.
I had the project artifacts.
I had the rationale.
I had the deliverables.
I had the experience.
That allowed me to enter a project that was already underway, quickly understand what was happening, and provide a better path forward.
It reinforced my belief that instructional design leadership isn’t simply about delivering learning on time.
It is about creating repeatable strategies, scalable systems, and organizational knowledge that continue to create value after the project is over.
This project taught me that learning strategy becomes especially valuable when it is built to outlast the project itself.
The Sterling implementation was one of my first experiences leading a large, cross-functional technology-learning initiative. I learned how to coordinate across multiple lines of business, manage competing demands for limited resources, work with vendors and SMEs, and keep learning development moving while the underlying technology continued to change.
But the Webster implementation taught me something even more valuable.
Documentation is leadership infrastructure.
Years after the original Sterling project had stopped, the work I had documented became a source of organizational knowledge.
I didn’t have to reconstruct the strategy from memory.
I had the curriculum approach.
I had the project artifacts.
I had the rationale.
I had the deliverables.
I had the experience.
That allowed me to enter a project that was already underway, quickly understand what was happening, and provide a better path forward.
It reinforced my belief that instructional design leadership isn’t simply about delivering learning on time.
It is about creating repeatable strategies, scalable systems, and organizational knowledge that continue to create value after the project is over.